Through some glasses darkly.
I have new eyes.
Or to be more precise, I have new glasses in order to cater for my evidently inferior genetics – thanks for that, ancestors. Practically the entire rest of my family are long-sighted but I like to be different so I’m short sighted and astigmatic. Perhaps I’m some kind of mutant; that’d explain the instant healing and extendable claws too.
Going to the opticians is fraught with the kind of insignificant minor perils that fill the lives of we upstart hominids ever since we decided to use our opposable thumbs for more than just doing impressions of the Fonz.
Firstly there’s the eye test itself. It’s mostly pretty benign, except for that godawful glaucoma test where jets of air are fired at your eyeballs in order to test the fluid pressure (tonometry, if you’re looking for a new word). Of course, what the optician is really measuring is quite how high you jump out of the chair each time they fire the machine, in the hope of beating Gavin’s score from last week when a customer knocked themselves out on the ceiling. Next time you have to endure that test, look upwards first to see how many dents and little clumps of skull matter are embedded in the tiles above you.
Next, once it’s been pointed out that you have approximately the same visual acuity as an earthworm, off you trot to choose your frames. At this point you’ll be confronted with about a billion different concoctions of wire, plastic and lens from which you must choose just one. Rumour has it that when Sisyphus was given the choice between rolling a boulder up a mountain for eternity or picking out the perfect pair of specs, he plumped for the easier option and headed for the hills.
I’ve often wondered how people with seriously poor vision are able to choose their glasses frames because as soon as they take their current pair off to try on the new set in the shop – hey presto – everything’s gone blurry and they can’t see well enough to decide whether they look good. Bit of a catch-22, that one.
Finally, when you’ve picked the glasses that make you look least like Elton John, you come to that special point when you realise that your fabulous new pair of spectacles are actually going to be somewhat redundant. Because, in order to afford the price of the frames, the lenses, and being squirted in the eye with high-pressure air, you’re going to have to sell your corneas on the human organs black market.
Anyways, I got through all that a week ago without having to auction off too many essential body parts and took delivery of my new specs on Friday. They look like this if you’re interested. From past experience frames by Oakley tend to be extremely comfortable and fit like a glove (if your head were a hand, that is). Plus, they don’t go flying across the court when I make any particularly sudden movements in badminton.
They’re not that dissimilar to my previous pair, and what has always amused me is how ridiculously impractical the case that comes with them is: a huge rounded metal torpedo that, if you can even fit it in your trouser pocket, makes you look like the world’s most well-endowed gentleman. Venture into any airport with it and you’ll be shot on suspicion of carrying a pipe bomb, unless it’s Heathrow where they have no doubt lost the guns in the same place everyone’s luggage has gone.
I got a pair of prescription sunglasses too (here, stalkers), and the case for these is a hilariously even larger black woven-nylon lozenge – about the size of two Volvo’s and a Nissan Micra. This is not practical design, Oakley. When I pack for holiday, the glasses case is supposed to go inside the suitcase, and not vice-versa. This massive coffin will not fit in any pocket known to mankind and is more likely to sit for eternity like a 2001-style monolith.